Phil Ryken is Guilty
February 21, 2010
To any who have missed it, Wheaton College has just appointed Dr Phil Ryken as its new President. The story was/was not leaked (depending on your perspective) by Christianity Today yesterday. You can read the blog and comments thread here.
As interesting as the news itself is the thread of blog comments. My oh my. As always, I am bemused that so many people have time to post such mewling and puking about matters which really don't matter at all, apparently frustrated that nobody consulted them over the issue. More importantly, I didn't realise Phil was such a bad person: he is apparently guilty of misogyny, fundamentalism, Calvinism, denial of evolution, homophobia, being a Council member of ACE, a blogger on Ref21, and, worst of all, being both white and male. That's quite a tally of high crimes and misdemeanours.
What is fascinating is how the comments reflect all of the typical middle class obsessions of the post-Marcuse left where, to put it bluntly, there is often too little concern for genuine economic inequalities and too much for psychological "oppression," a usefully subjective and nebulous concept, usually defined as whatever the middle class lobby groups say it is.
So Phil, it appears, is guilty of being a middle class white guy with a degree. Still, at least the verdict is a just one: he has, after all, been found guilty by a jury of his peers.
As interesting as the news itself is the thread of blog comments. My oh my. As always, I am bemused that so many people have time to post such mewling and puking about matters which really don't matter at all, apparently frustrated that nobody consulted them over the issue. More importantly, I didn't realise Phil was such a bad person: he is apparently guilty of misogyny, fundamentalism, Calvinism, denial of evolution, homophobia, being a Council member of ACE, a blogger on Ref21, and, worst of all, being both white and male. That's quite a tally of high crimes and misdemeanours.
What is fascinating is how the comments reflect all of the typical middle class obsessions of the post-Marcuse left where, to put it bluntly, there is often too little concern for genuine economic inequalities and too much for psychological "oppression," a usefully subjective and nebulous concept, usually defined as whatever the middle class lobby groups say it is.
So Phil, it appears, is guilty of being a middle class white guy with a degree. Still, at least the verdict is a just one: he has, after all, been found guilty by a jury of his peers.
